~ The Creator of Mike Malone

Back to Bread

A recent trip to York and a visit to a wonderful chocolate shop gave me the inspiration for a ‘new’ flavour bread. The Cocoa House in York is a place you must visit. The hot chocolates, the cakes and, in fact, every one of their dishes is a delight. The highlight was a slice of chocolate stout cake. Words can’t describe it. It was rich and sweet and gooey and bitter all in one. Amazing. All of which got me thinking about bread. I use beer regularly when I make bread, experimenting with different ales to find different flavours. I use chocolate drops when I make my strawberry and white chocolate bread. But stout and chocolate – that I had to try.

So, I bought a bottle of London Porter – rich and dark – to which I added some boiled water to provide me with the warm liquid for the dough. Then, I melted half a bar of Lindt 70% chocolate into the beer/water mix. That was the liquid to add to my flour and yeast.

The result a chocolate-coloured loaf which had a wonderful bitterness offset by a hint of rich chocolate. I count that as a success and it will definitely be a bread that I will be making again. I have bought some Double Chocolate beer this week, so I see another experiment in the near future.